Ariana Grande released her exes with love. Pusha-T spilled the tea on Drake’s baby. Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks took a flawed country to task, and CupcakKe debuted approximately 30 new metaphors for the male anatomy. This carnival ride of a year had an equally wild soundtrack every step of the way. Here are our picks for the best songs of the year.

“Rich & Sad”

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On April 11, 1964, the burgeoning Beatles both topped the Billboard charts with “Can’t Buy Me Love” and set a record for the most songs in the Top 20 by a single artist, with six. That record held for 54 years, until this May, when Post Malone placed nine tracks in the Top 20, including “Rich & Sad” at No. 14. Some may consider this changing of the guard a pop travesty of apocalyptic proportions—or, at least, a shameless byproduct of newfangled streaming metrics—but there is actually some kismet at work here.

“Rich & Sad” is buoyed by a psychedelic wheeze that recalls nothing less than “Strawberry Fields Forever,” and the song’s regretful message is a 21st-century twist on Paul McCartney’s 1964 revelation that more money does not necessarily lead to love. “I would throw it all away/I just keep on wishin’ that the money made you stay,” Post laments, sobbing into a pile of hundred dollar bills. The track brings the latent woe in the singer’s voice to the fore—how he often seems to be sinking in quicksand while yowling of the spoils of success, like a forehead-tatted canary in late capitalism’s doomed coal mine. Because as long as there are rich pop stars who need real love, there will be songs about how they can’t afford to find it. –Ryan Dombal

“Stock Image”

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For Miya Folick, the traditional stress relief of a therapeutic soak isn’t working. At the start of “Stock Image,” she climbs in the warm water but only remembers to leave when it’s become so cold that she’s physically blue, too. In this vulnerable moment, she forgives herself for her faults and embraces her eccentricities: “You hide in the bones of a stock image,” she sings at the close of her chorus, her voice taking on a sudden operatic tremor. Pulsing drums and radiant synths propel and lift her, goading her into sharing intimate details—the hair swept under her bed, the long stares in her mirror, the fact that she struggles with it all. Avoiding escapism and platitudes, Folick pushes past hardship by first accepting it. “Stock Image” is a rare multivalent motivational song, as much a poke in the ribs as it is a reassuring pat on the back. –Grayson Currin

“Self Care”

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Mac Miller let us know he wasn’t all right. In interviews, the rapper was always open about addiction, and on his final album, Swimming, he was even more candid and unflinching. No song painted a grimmer portrait of his final months than “Self Care,” a stark account of the external and internal forces that drove him to self-medicate; the track's only relief comes in the form of a woozy coda that plays like an implicit relapse. Following his death, the song is even more difficult to listen to, especially a wishful line about having all the time in the world. Miller may have recognized that he was waging a losing battle, but there’s still something beautiful about his resolve to keep fighting. –Evan Rytlewski

“In My View”

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There are biblical overtones to “In My View,” from Young Fathers’ third album, Cocoa Sugar. In this Scottish trio’s half-rapped, half-sung verses, references to kings, saints, sinners, and Delilah abound, and wisps of background vocals evoke a holy choir. If this is a hymn, though, it’s a harsh one, with a chorus insisting that progress comes with a price, possibly suggesting an eye-for-an-eye worldview. But nothing in “In My View” is perfectly clear, even if it is one of Young Fathers’ most accessible tracks to date. The group is still adept at crafting music and messages that don’t lend themselves to easy interpretation, no matter how clearly the words are delivered. So “In My View” becomes a sinewy soul song that swings and sways while riding an undercurrent of tension and uncertainty. Sweating out a marching band beat while simultaneously meditating on desire and betrayal, Young Fathers make anxiety sound smooth, and then the opposite, too. –Marc Masters

“Comeback Kid”

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Maybe now people can stop calling Sharon Van Etten “confessional” and stop assuming her songs are purely autobiographical. In “Comeback Kid,” the first single from her forthcoming LP Remind Me Tomorrow, she comes across as something between a film noir heroine, an Outsiders-esque rebel, and an aging boxer. She’s put away the strings and pedal steels in favor of synth and organ, at times bringing to mind Siouxsie Sioux. And in the song’s video, she’s all dark-pop ’80s glam in blood red lipstick, with an unwavering stare. “I’m the runaway, I’m the stay-out-late,” she declares, tough and incandescent. –Rebecca Bengal

“Moon River”

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Joaquin Oliver, an avowed Frank Ocean fan who loved Blonde so much he’d dyed his own hair to match, was only 17 when he was gunned down in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting this past February. The same day, Ocean released a cover of the melancholy “Moon River,” from Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It was a coincidence; Ocean has made a habit of dropping songs untethered to any external schedule, preserving his shrouded, shamanic presence. On its own, his version already had a haunting quality, his quivering voice splitting harmonies over plaintive keys. But according to reports, some friends of Oliver’s saw the confluence as “divine timing,” the lyrics about a “moon river, wider than a mile” and “crossing it in style someday” ringing like a blessed premonition of their friend peacefully floating away.

There have been so many random shocks of tragedy this year that mourning can feel a daily experience. But here, in Ocean’s chance release of “Moon River,” was proof of our world’s unplanned joys, too. It was the ether providing a balm at the same time it produced tragedy: an old-fashioned song sung in 1961 by Audrey Hepburn, pitch-shifted by a modern healer into something to soothe us. Joaquin Oliver might never have gotten to hear the song, but Frank Ocean’s “Moon River” will now always be his, a tiny consolation for a tragedy too big. –Alex Frank

“Love Me Right”

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“Love Me Right” is a wounded plea to a romantic partner who’s gone cold, a sumptuous R&B anthem that dips into house, samba, even smooth jazz. It’s also a neat snapshot of what New York singer, songwriter, and producer Amber Mark does so well. Her lyrics are conversational, relating to feelings anyone could experience, and her delivery rarely feels flashy. But her husky voice and globe-trotting sensibility bring all this to a place of understated opulence. In songs, as in relationships, intimacy sometimes means not having to spell everything out for the other person—and in the case of “Love Me Right,” the other person just doesn’t get it, and it’s not clear if they ever will. So when Mark asks, “Why won’t you realize you gotta love me right baby?” it already sounds like she’s moving on. –Marc Hogan

“T69 Collapse”

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It’s hard to think of another electronic artist who’s enjoyed a late-career rejuvenation like Richard D. James. Instead of glum, self-plagiarizing stagnation, his artistic middle age has been a sustained eruption of surprise and delight. Continuing his current run, the Collapse EP bursts its skin with ripening creativity: a feeling of plenitude caught in its vocal snippet that promises to lead the listener to “the land of abundance.”

Opener “T69 Collapse” is an apt herald of the richness within. It starts with the whispery crispness of intricately edited beats, skidding and slipping like a tap-dancer on an oily floor: a flashback to the serene frenzy of late-’90s drill‘n’bass, when James and his IDM comrades strove to beat jungle at its own breakbeat game. But things get really interesting mid-song, when the collapse referenced in the title occurs: a juddering tumble of drums that feels like an astrophysical rupture, time itself swirling down the cosmic plughole. The tune then pulls itself together like reversed film of an explosion, gliding out with feverishly dainty beatwork offset by a typically Aphex pensive melody, daubed in milky synth so tonally smeared it feels like your ears are being pulled out of focus. Twenty-seven years into his recording career and approaching his life’s half-century mark, James exhibits a limber vitality and an evergreen joy in creation that’s as remarkable as it is enviable. –Simon Reynolds

“Track 10”

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Released at the very end of last year, Charli XCX’s Pop 2 mixtape saw the electro-pop star perfecting her ongoing collaboration with maximalist bubblegum collective PC Music. Closer “Track 10” serves as a fitting end to a record in which angelic, sugary electronics easily turn dark, even grotesque. An odyssey of trust issues, the song is able to achieve that rare balance between extreme artifice and total honesty: Amid an effervescent rush of beats and vocal loops, Charli XCX hits the bridge and suddenly we’re home free, fear turned to fearlessness under the force of her belt. Her voice frays through the Auto-Tune at one point, like a speck of mud flung onto something very shiny, before giving way to harps and trap. As this crumbling volcano of a song goes down, it leaves the listener with one last “It’s Charli, baby” whispered in their ear. As if it could be anyone else. –Jillian Mapes

“Ring the Alarm”

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Fellow Philadelphians Moor Mother and DJ Haram each make dense, noisy music on their own, but Spa 700, their debut EP under the name 700 Bliss, is as subtle as it is bracing. On the release’s sparse highlight “Ring the Alarm,” Haram constructs a rhythm that’s both insistent and halting, creating an experience that feels like listening to your own heartbeat. Into this web, Moor Mother injects blunt statements rapped with authoritative urgency, punctuating her repeated phrases with quick breaths. One of her bullet-like couplets—“You heard what I said/That anti-black’s programmed in your head”—sticks particularly hard, shot as it is through the barrel of Haram’s increasingly intense samples. The duo’s imperatives for action are certainly clear and timely, but “Ring the Alarm” shows that political music can be nuanced and brutally effective at once. –Marc Masters

“Hate the Real Me”

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Future’s music traces the occasional soaring victory and plenty other wins that are small, petty, spiteful. He’s interested in making you jealous of his furs and his girls; private flights to tropical villas are worth it if an ex sees them on Instagram and feels a pang of envy. But none of these things—pettiness, spite, Turks, Caicos—are the animating force behind Future’s music. That would be pain—the raw, uncut sort that lingers in the belly for years without end. “Hate the Real Me,” the last track on his and Zaytoven’s BEASTMODE 2, recognizes that pain as unresolvable. On the chorus, Future drones, “I’m tryna get high as I can”; the first verse has an extended passage about a woman describing her attempts to sleep with him, and then he lists each person who’s heard the rumor while sounding increasingly, irretrievably empty. There’s a reference to when he was shot as a teenager and a startling aside: “A sober mind wasn’t good for me.” Even his voice trembles. –Paul A. Thompson

“Party for One”

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A lot of people still want a sequel to “Call Me Maybe,” perhaps none more than Carly Rae Jepsen herself. But even though everything she’s released since has followed a similarly winsome template, “Party for One” is Jepsen’s first explicit sequel to that hit. The intros are strikingly similar, the synths in the background play the same melody as the strings of “Call Me Maybe,” and there’s a direct lyrical callback.

Again, Jepsen pairs sweeter-than-average music and blunter-than-average lyrics. For decades, it hasn’t been remarkable for a pop star to refer to masturbation—but it is remarkable to do so while setting the disarming, 1 a.m. “you don’t care about me” text to the sugariest of hooks. “Party for One” sounds like ending credits music for a teen movie that adults love too, the kind where angst is resolved and new love blooms in one glorious party of dancing and cheering and synchronized bursts of spangles. And like all good Carly Rae Jepsen songs, it makes that sound like the very first time. –Katherine St. Asaph

“Anna Wintour”

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Maybe it’s a Vogue/voguing pun, but Anna Wintour is an odd talisman for what Azealia Banks has described as a song “about finding myself.” The legendary, bobbed magazine editor is an icon of consistency. Azealia Banks is… not an icon of consistency. Mercifully, on “Anna Wintour,” the rapper’s messy public persona yields the floor to a bracing showcase of her dexterity. She pulls triple duty as house diva, raging wraith, and cold-blooded killer, nailing each part and metabolizing Junior Sanchez’s fiercely generic Ibiza track into a raw energy source. “Anna Wintour” joins “thank u, next” and “Honey” among the few songs about self-love released this year that betray greater depth than vapid Instagram inspo, and it offers a reminder of what makes the often-frustrating Banks so great: Like this song’s namesake, she knows how to keep us looking. –Laura Snapes

“Stir Fry”

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Compared with Migos’ 2017 single, “MotorSport”—which had a wafting ethereality that pointed to a new post-trap direction—follow-up “Stir Fry” has the trio playing by old-school rules, and winning. Originally made for T.I. but never used, Pharrell’s beat is from 2008 and harks back even further still, recalling the raw funk of Neptunes productions like Mystikal’s “Shake Ya Ass.” Running through the whole of “Stir Fry” is a nagging ear-worm that’s positively primordial: a whistling motif based on an organ lick from Mohawks’ 1968 R&B tune “The Champ,” already sampled hundreds of times in hip-hop. Takeoff, Offset, and Quavo ride the loping, breakbeat-like groove, reeling off references to cheap fast-food chains that contrast with their more standard name-checks of expensive foreign watches and cars. It fits the contradictory aspiration expressed in Quavo’s Auto-crooned hook: the wish and the vow to “still be real and famous.”

This was the year Migos became a meme: parodied in a “SNL” sketch, piling into James Corden’s “Carpool Karaoke.” They now exist somewhere between street and simulacrum, turning snapshots of vice and viciousness into blithe and buoyant entertainment. The tongue-twisting, lip-smacking assonance of this irresistible single’s chorus—“In the kitchen, wrist-twistin’ like it’s stir fry”—makes crack preparation seem as harmless and wholesome as a cooking show. –Simon Reynolds

“Distortion”

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Over 11 riveting minutes, “Distortion” finds Mount Eerie’s Phil Elverum taking a series of plainspoken vignettes from his life and fastening them into a winding meditation on birth, life, death, responsibility, and resilience. We hear about the first two times Elverum saw a dead body—his great-grandfather, as a kid, and then his wife and the mother of his young child—and two portraits of wild young men who stare down the prospect of becoming fathers before they are ready. One of these is Elverum himself, who at age 23 hears that he may have impregnated someone with whom he’d had a random sexual encounter. And the other is the writer Jack Kerouac, the subject of a documentary Elverum watches during a long flight. There’s a lot to take in, and these stories at first seem arbitrary and unconnected. But as the song builds, they fold in on each other, collapsing the lines between past and the present, between reality and imagination, between what we can’t quite remember and what we will never forget. –Mark Richardson

“APESHIT”

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No one was prepared for “APESHIT.” The lead single from Beyoncé and JAY-Z’s surprise joint album brims with cocky gratitude for the high life, flaunting Bey’s head-spinning flow and JAY’s louche, laid-back delivery over an expensive, pop-trap background courtesy of Pharrell. While clearly indebted to Migos, whose demo of the song leaked just a few days after the Carters’ came out, “APESHIT” is further proof that the zeitgeist belongs to this power couple, who can claim a cultural moment whenever they please. Bey lists off fashion houses and sports cars like they’re items on her grocery list, but it’s her sneering “Get off my dick” that really sets the tone. Of course, the song is only half the story—the lavish video for “APESHIT,” one of the year’s best, finds the Carters lounging and dancing around an empty Louvre in designer fineries, a seamless mashup of icons old and new. –Eric Torres

“Vlone”

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Valee is a serene individual. He keeps an indoor koi pond. And when an ABC sitcom hired him to make a cameo as himself, he was asked to portray a thoughtful, patient listener. As usual, the rapper is a calm presence on “Vlone.” He only has a handful of lines in the song, and none of them bestow any real wisdom—he just talks about the clothes he’s wearing. “These are vintage jeans,” he half-mumbles before offering a clipped affirmative: “Mhm.” The song is a subdued flex coupled with a borderline sleepy delivery. He’s got nice things, but he’s not going on and on about it. Over minimal instrumentation, he’s literally telling you to leave him alone. Especially if you’re broke. –Evan Minsker

“Believe”

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Freedom, Damon McMahon’s fifth record as Amen Dunes, is sprawling and shimmering, lingering somewhere between a memory and a daydream. Nowhere is this more true than on “Believe,” which examines the false promise of nostalgia while fully enveloped in its rosy glow. The song is built upon a series of impressions: snatches of spiritual imagery, glimpses into a childhood scored by the radio, brief pronouncements of devotion rounding out otherwise unintelligible verses. These details simmer over insistent plucks of guitar and swells of harmonica, building to a cathartic climax as McMahon gives thanks for his past and confronts his future head-on. –Madison Bloom

“Macaulay Culkin”

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In what’s been a breakout year for Baltimore rapper JPEGMAFIA, “Macaulay Culkin” offered a brief glimpse into the man behind the music, sans all the piss and vinegar that made up his excellent Veteran LP. On this rare moment of reflection, he name-checks a few recognizable figures to assess how he truly feels behind the scenes. “I got my hands on my face like Macaulay Culkin,” he spits at the top of the two-minute track. “Black man, white fam, I feel like Jason Jordan,” he claims, referencing the WWE star. He’s Rick and Morty in the science lab, Mulder and Scully solving mysteries. All of which is to say: There’s no telling who you’ll get from one JPEGMAFIA track to the next. –Marcus J. Moore

“Life Is Beautiful”

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It hurts to hear Lil Peep acknowledge that life can be worthwhile. He does it a lot, perhaps with some irony, in “Life Is Beautiful,” a song originally written and released in 2015 and then gorgeously reworked for the emo rap star’s posthumous album, Come Over When You’re Sober Pt. 2. On the track, Peep presents myriad of examples of how devastation is part of everyday life, whether it takes the form of a soul-crushing office job, being targeted by the police, or pining for the approval of your crush. But after each one, he seemingly shakes his head while asking the question: “Isn’t life beautiful?” The track’s producers, Smokeasac and IIVI, envelope his melancholy vocals with pooling synths and creaking cello lines, giving it a pulsating, breathing quality. In all its wounded grace, the song gets a chance at new life. –Michelle Kim